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IF YOU WANT IT DONE RIGHT, DO IT YOURSELF. Online brokers say they're seeing new clients transferring entire accounts from full-service brokerages in order to take personal control of their money in these tough markets.

That's just the opposite of what happened when the markets took a dive in the post-dot-com era of 2001-02. Back then, traders who had been relying on their baristas for stock tips decided to pull back and get professional help. Now, high-net-worth investors figure they can decide on their own trades and do at least as well as their well-heeled full-service brokers.

"Many investors are realizing that their trusted advisers, in many cases, have let them down, so they are opening self-directed online investment accounts to make their own investing decisions. We expect this to continue," says Kevin Dodson, Scottrade's director of online services in a representative statement.

For instance, at TradeKing (www.tradeking.com), the customer base doubled in 2008, and the average number of stocks traded rose by 114% in the fourth quarter versus the fourth quarter of 2007. Thinkorswim reports account growth of 88% between 2007 and 2008 with a 101% gain in daily retail trades.

When we began evaluating online brokers at Barron's in 1995, newly minted online investors were transferring small pieces of their holdings from full-service brokers to self-directed accounts. They would play with, say, $25,000 or so on E*Trade, but leave the bulk of their holdings at brokers such as Merrill Lynch. Online brokers said back then that most of their new accounts were being opened with checks drawn on full-service brokers or banks.

Now, what they're seeing are ACATs (automated customer-account transfers) of entire accounts, rather than just some leftover cash. The flow of ACATs has been relatively steady for several years, but over half of the brokers in our latest online-broker survey (the results will be published next week) reported a surge in the fourth quarter of 2008.

This behavior seems counterintuitive in the face of the carnage we're seeing in the markets -- why not get advice in treacherous times? Well, it becomes more reasonable if you consider how much money investors have lost while paying top dollar to full-service brokers.

The trading tools available at online brokers allow investors to see what they're doing and make their own decisions, executing trades at lower prices and keeping themselves up-to-the-minute on all their holdings.

Here's a quick look at some new tools brokers hope will retain these new customers. The great majority focused on increased options-trading capability.

Scottrade (www.scottrade.com), which for a long time didn't offer options, has now entered the fray with the OptionsFirst (www.optionsfirst.com) platform. While it's a little late to the table, this platform has some good tools for finding and trading complex options strategies. It includes a Virtual Trading function, so you can test out your ideas before committing real cash to them. For those new to options trading, and for existing Scottrade customers who were considering moving to competing brokers so that they could get into the derivatives market, OptionsFirst is a welcome addition.

Thinkorswim (www.thinkorswim.com) made significant upgrades to its options platform almost monthly throughout 2008. Among the new tools launched are thinkAI, an intra-day trading tool that uses pattern-matching algorithms and artificial-intelligence technology to project expected price movements, and the Sizzle index, a proprietary tool that identifies in real time stocks whose options have unusual spikes of trading volume.

OptionsXpress (www.optionsxpress.com) overhauled its entire site, which we thought was looking a little dated last year. Now, the site is organized around a series of "hubs" that focus on key aspects of the trading experience: Account Features; Trades; Quotes; Research; Tools; and Education. When you choose one of the hub titles, all its functionality appears in a mini-menu, making it very easy to get from one place to another. When you enter an order, a box that displays the depth of the market for that particular item opens up so that you can get an idea of the inventory available at current prices.

Over all, the site is much easier to use now, and the tools are organized in a way that makes them easy to find.

OptionsHouse (www.optionshouse.com) added streaming charts with technical-analysis capabilities, and the streaming news feed was enhanced with stories from AP Financial, Midnight Trader and the Fly on the Wall. The firm recently launched a set of volatility tools for options traders that include a probability calculator, profit-and-loss calculator and volatility charts. These tools allow an options trader to view the expected returns from any kind of options trade graphically, including up to four legs, or related transactions. To top it all off, the firm dropped its commissions to $2.95 for stock trades and a flat $9.95 for options transactions. There are no per-contract fees added to the latter, which makes it a good deal.

Over at E*Trade (www.etrade.com), several new tools were added to the Power E*Trade Pro platform for options traders, including improved options charting and analytics, which allow options traders to view options prices, skew, put/call and implied volatility charts. Options traders can also view and customize such options analytics as streaming "Greeks" and implied volatilities. Traders on the go can make options trades with the recently introduced E*Trade Mobile Pro.

MB Trading (www.mbtrading.com) revamped its downloadable Navigator trading platform and added integrated charts and an options platform with over 90 pre-set options strategies. The firm's Web-based Navigator was also spiffed up, and now offers almost all of the functionality of the software-based platform.